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geerlingguy / pi-camera

A Raspberry Pi Camera
MIT License
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Battery compartment improvement #2

Open geerlingguy opened 1 year ago

geerlingguy commented 1 year ago

The original PIKON design calls for a very specific battery pack, the NanoWave 3 5000mAh USB-C & A Power Bank.

That battery pack seems to only be available from British resellers, as I haven't found it on US Amazon or any other US-based seller.

And using a battery pack like that also requires an awkward USB-C to USB-C cable that sticks out the top of the camera.

I would like to see if there's an easier way to non-destructively tie an 18650 battery cell into a charge/5V power circuit, and then inject power through that circuit into the Pi's 5V rail.

This circuit would ideally fit in the grip alongside the battery (with the battery and PCB fitting into a channel that is printed into the case itself). I haven't looked too much into 18650 circuits for the Pi, but I know many exist as HATs—that wouldn't work in this build, it would need to be separate and built into the grip area.

padmalaya-rawal commented 1 year ago

Instead of using a powerbank or any other unreliable solution. The integeration of Open Upcell which is a USB Type C power delivery cum BMS capable of powering Raspberry pi that is slightly larger than 18650 cell will be a great choice. The cherry on the top is that it's OPEN SOURCE :)

We are currently running a Crowd supply campaign for the same. Please do check it out and make powering up your raspberry pi projects much more easier than ever before.

Crowd Supply page: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sikra/open-upcell Hackaday page: https://hackaday.io/project/188459-open-upcell

20230105_181922

ivucica commented 1 year ago

@padmalaya-rawal This seems pretty cool to try out. Given I'm mostly a userland software guy, I hope you consider publishing (detailed?) instructions on how to make the stock Raspberry Pi OS show the battery level in GUI, and how to get it from the remote command line as well -- i.e. how to hook up the relevant connections to a Pi4 and a CM4 dev board. Otherwise this looks like what I was looking for.

padmalaya-rawal commented 1 year ago

@ivucica For sure. I will be releasing detailed tutorials on https://electroboffin.com/ on how to use it or various applications. Also we will update on crowdsupply & hackaday page as well. Please consider subscribing us on Crowdsupply so that you won't miss any update :)